The recent and well publicized reduction in cost of computer equipment and software has led to the application of these devices to an ever-increasing range of use. One prime example of computerization in recent years has been the application of computer technology to agriculture. For example, systems are now commercially available in which a computer is informed when a given cow has approached a feeding station. The computer then consults its memory as to the correct amount of food to be dispensed to that particular animal and supplies the food. This information can then be correlated with the amount of the milk produced by the cow, and her feed allotment can be increased or decreased as necessary.
However, this system still has significant room for improvement. For example, the amount of milk given by a particular cow is determined by weighing. This process has now been computerized to the extent that electronic weighing devices are available which weigh the milk and record the amount, cross-indexed to the identification of the cow, such that the correlation is computerized. However, the electronic weighing apparatus made available to date is quite cumbersome and expensive.
To date there has been developed no fully automatic milking machine, i.e., in which no human is required to attach the milk receptacles to the udders of the cow. Accordingly, a farmer is still required to assist each cow with milking, and must be in the proximity to the cow during the milking process. This being so, the complex and expensive electronic weighing devices can be dispensed with as a means of data entry if the farmer can instead be provided with a simple way of entering the amount of milk produced by the cow into the computer. That is to say, if the farmer can be enabled to enter the amount of milk taken from a given cow on a particular day without substantially complicating his tasks, the complex and expensive weighing device can be eliminated, with substantial economies thus realizable in the dairy industry.
It is accordingly an object of the invention to provide an apparatus for the measurement of the milk output by a cow in a given milking session, wherein the fact that a human operator is of necessity in the vicinity of the cow after the milking operation is utilized, yet in which the additional duties required of the human operator are relatively small.
It is another object of the invention to provide means and apparatus for measurement of milk output by a cow in a given milking session in which actual weighing of the milk is avoided, and in which the weight data is provided in a form which is directly acceptable by a computer, without necessity of a human operator's making note of the amount.
As is well known, recent developments in bar code technology have rendered these devices useful in ever-widely expanding fields, just as in the case of computers, as discussed above. The prior art shows numerous new applications for bar code technology. The present invention provides an additional such new use, identification of dairy animals by bar code reader. Use of bar codes to identify dairy animals according to the invention requires that the prior art bar code labels be improved to be more durable, fool-proof and easily installable than has previously been possible, and this is accordingly an additional object of the invention.
One drawback to the bar code labels as conventionally produced is that they are typically required to be pre-printed by a manufacturer thereof and would ordinarily be stocked in all the various permutations of numbers required. It is an object of the invention instead to provide a means and method for printing bar code labels using relatively inexpensive personal computer devices, whereby the bar code labels can be customized to the user's specific wants and needs.
The ultimate object of the invention is to provide systems for data entry in agricultural and other applications using bar code technologies, and in which bar codes are used, for example, to measure quantities of materials and to identify the location, source or other attribute of the materials, so that a computer can be simultaneously provided with information as to, e.g., the amount of material stored in a given vessel, the identification of said material and of the vessel, and the like.